Brockton High graduate launches public health initiative in Africa

Last month, Loic Assobmo traveled to Cameroon and met with doctors and business leaders to discuss his idea of using smartphones to deliver public health information to residents in rural areas. Most residents, he said, live in villages without access to doctors and typically hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital.

BROCKTON – Loic Assobmo remembers when he was just 6 years old, living in his native Cameroon, and his mother had a stroke.

His family and neighbors didn’t know what to do, Assobmo said. They lived in a rural area in west-central Africa, more than an hour away from the closest hospital. His mother, Grace, stayed home and did not get immediate medical attention.

“It took about three days for her to get the money to get her to a hospital,” Assobmo, now 21, a Boston College junior who is studying to become a doctor, recalled Thursday.

“When she got to a hospital, things were moving slow,” he said. “It was inefficient. Doctors are put in charge of several patients. There was commotion.”

Assobmo and his mother eventually immigrated to the United States to join his father, who works as a biomedical engineer in Boston.

His family moved to Brockton nine years ago. His mother has since received regular medical attention but the stroke left her paralyzed on her left side, Assobmo said.

Her experience led Assobmo, a 2011 graduate of Brockton High School, to launch an initiative to bring public health information to rural Africans.

Last month, the biology major traveled to Cameroon – his first visit since leaving the country at age 6 – and met with doctors and business leaders to discuss his idea of using smartphones to deliver public health information to residents in rural areas. Most residents, he said, live in villages without access to doctors and typically hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital.

“I realized that there was a need to empower these people to be able to identify illnesses,” Assobmo said. “I wanted to get them the information they need to help themselves and their family members at home.”

Assobmo has a plan to use smartphones to give Africans access to public health information that can help them spot and seek treatment for five major illnesses: stroke, HIV, malaria, pneumonia and Ebola virus.

“These were the top five illnesses in Africa that were frequently occurring there and people weren’t even able to recognize them,” he said.

Last summer, he interned at Think Big, Dream Big, a social entrepreneurship and mentoring program. He contacted the Mayo Clinic and, using online resources, Assobmo built a prototype app and developed a plan to take his idea back to his homeland.

He also formed the Global Enterprise for Medical Awareness, which he has registered as a nonprofit group in Massachusetts.

During his trip, Assobmo reunited with his maternal grandfather, Etienne, who drove him for several hours a day across remote areas for meetings with doctors, public health advocates, mobile phone service providers and government officials.

Page 2 of 2 - He said he was struck by the extreme poverty he saw, coupled with extreme wealth. While some hospitals and clinics were modern, they housed outdated medical equipment, he said.

Assobmo said he was interviewed by television crews on his efforts and produced three video public service announcements on public health issues. He plans to visit Ghana in May to meet with business leaders there to learn more about African companies.

He said he’s encouraged by the positive response he received from doctors he met with at hospitals in the capital of Yaoundé and the Gulf of Guinea port city of Douala, Cameroon’s commercial center, about his public healthcare initiatives.

“They all told me that this would be very helpful,” he said. “They said the one thing it would provide would be education and awareness. I hope to make a lot more progress.”